As a student of history, I have long been aware of the historic nature of Barack Obama's campaign and election as the 44th President of the United States. But it was yesterday, as I was watching the "We Are One" inaugural concert on HBO, that the enormous wave of history washed over me and I was overwhelmed with emotion.

It was not just the culmination of the march begun by Martin Luther King or the similarities to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Those comparisons are powerful to be sure. But the specific moment that brought it all home for me was seeing 89-year-old Pete Seeger, the father of American folk music in the freezing cold with nothing but his banjo, wool hat and flannel shirt, standing with Bruce Springsteen before the next President of the United States, leading the crowd of a million strong in the singing of Woody Guthrie's ballad, This Land Is Your Land.

The song was written to express anger at the way ordinary Americans were discarded and disposed during the Dust Bowl, a time when millions of people lost their homes and farms, stood in relief lines, and finally took to the road in a great migration to find the American dream. There was a time when Woody and Pete and many who sang with them were branded communists and blacklisted. Yesterday, the next president joined Seeger and Springsteen and millions watching in person or on TV in a spirit of unity and hope for a better tomorrow. The smile on Seeger's face lit up the screen. It was an incredibly moving moment.

On January 20, America and the world will watch as the first African American President is sworn in and this land becomes our land again. His ability to inspire was what got him elected. His ability to unite us in a common purpose will be what enables him to lead.